Artifacts From the Future: Birth Control

Click on the thumbnails below for a closer look at this birth control inhalation system from 2029.

We'll continue to create a new artifact from the future in every issue of Wired magazine, but we'd like to see your prognostications, too. What do you think our world will look like in 10, 20, or 100 years? Each month, we'll propose a scenario and ask for your help. Sketch out your vision, then return here to upload your ideas, see other submissions, and vote for your favorites. Check out this month's challenge.

We imagine women of the future will be able to puff away worries of pregnancy with this postcoital contraceptive delivered via inhalation.

The system is named after the famous postcoital glow, and it does actually glow in the dark for convenience. The drug is flavored to cool you down.

Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals, the company that first brought us the Pill and the Patch, is the most likely candidate to pioneer yet another mode of contraceptive drug delivery.

Meloxicam, currently marketed as an arthritis drug, is also being tested as a postcoital contraceptive. It works by inhibiting ovulation (technically, it inhibits cyclooxygenase-2, which in turn inhibits ovulation). In short: no egg, no baby. It's 100% effective in rabbits, which is saying something. If results can be replicated in people, it would be more effective than the Plan B pill (and without the menstruation).

The US Census Bureau predicts that the country's population will top 370 million by 2029. Facing a 20 percent increase, we're betting the government forms an Office of Population Control in the meantime.

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